Right Tool for the Job

I was asked to come out and check a rural home's water system this weekend. The owners have been trying to keep it going since they purchased their acreage, but have dealt with staining and bacterial build-up in their plumbing, as well as a rotten-egg odour in the home.

They had someone come to replace the "Birm" media in their iron filter in 2008 and have since had their water tested by the County. Even after their air injector, mixing tank and birm filter, they were still getting 0.74 parts per million (ppm) of iron through their plumbing - more than double the concentration where staining starts to be visible on fixtures.

I tested their raw well water as well as their water at the tap. I confirmed the system was only removing about 1/2 the iron coming from their well. The main problem is that there was H2S (hydrogen sulfide) gas present in the water. Some of it was being oxidized by their air injection system, but birm is specifically not suitable for treating water with H2S present. This is either a case of some overzealous salesman extolling the virtues of his magical "chemical free" iron filter, or perhaps a case where the water chemistry had changed and the birm system simply wasn't capable of keeping up.

Its unfortunate the technician that replaced the birm media in their filter seems to have neglected to test the water. The owners complained of rotten egg odour to him and that is an immediate reason to check for H2S gas. If it is present, there is absolutely no point in replacing the birm media - it simply won't work on that water. Period. Instead, the technician charged them around $700 for a service call and left a system behind that had no chance of working for his customer.

Perhaps ignorance, perhaps arrogance - but there is no excuse for what happened there. If you have water problems, especially with well water, you need to ensure you are dealing with a professional, not just some slick sales guy that may not be properly trained on how to treat different kinds of problem water. I left some recommendations for new equipment using a media called manganese greensand that will work and keep him going for the life of the property. Hopefully they take me up on the offer to help - spending more money trying to get the wrong system going is throwing good money after bad!